House of Cards
by Alis Volat Propris
Summary: There weren't enough tears in the world to drown herself in though she would swear it, as her vision blurred, giving way to saline rivers. There was no going back from this. Shikamaru was dead. Neji/Ino


"A tragedy is a tragedy, and at the bottom, all tragedies are stupid. Give me a choice and I'll take _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ over _Hamlet _every time. Any fool with steady hands and a working set of lungs can build up a house of cards and then blow it down, but it takes a genius to make people laugh."  
― Stephen King

AN: Tragedy Struck. Friend of mine passed away in a car accident. This is the result.

There weren't enough tears in the world to drown herself in though she would swear it, as her vision blurred, giving way to saline rivers trailing down her cheeks. There was no going back from this. The moment weighed her down, suffocating her, in it's silence. To scream was to ask for death at the hands of other ninja and so she smothered her grief, drowned it with her tears. Ash and blood were embedded in that pineapple shaped spiky hair along with a good deal of congealed blood. His blood. He had been ambushed, cornered. From the evidence of the bodies he had taken as many with him as he possibly could. The explosion took him from the scene. He could not have planned for that. The spiky hair moved in the wind. He never would again.

Black tresses shifted and Ino's breathe caught. Cruel. Only the wind. She had already checked his pulse. He rarely brushed that unkempt hair, hadn't today. Steel blue eyes moved down to his lips, turning purple already. She would never again watch him stuff a cigarette in those lips. Would never again see that sardonic smile. Hers trembled, teeth biting until she could feel and taste the blood. It didn't matter. She would never pluck those cigarettes from his lips, never again grind them under her boot. There was no more laughter, no more stupid jokes to be shared. No more roll of his eyes as she spouted another nonsensical idea. He had made their ideas reality, even if he had never really acknowledged them. He lived them. Now he was gone.

Numb. Ice blue eyes looked upon him, his eyes closed. Forever. She hated that word, more now than in any other moment of her life. Forever separated. Her hand trembled as she touched that black hair, buried her hands, her heart in those dark tresses. She would never again hear him tell her how troublesome she was.

How could he have left her like this? He was supposed to be the goddamn genius! He had a hundred plans up his sleeves and he was foiled by a coupe de grace? Ino couldn't accept that. She hugged him, clasped his corpse to her, tightly, as if she could bring him back. Nothing. No feel of life, no feint breathe, or heart beat. There was nothing left of him, nothing left of what she had known and loved except an empty fucking shell. She had inhabited bodies, but could never inhabit a corpse. There was nothing inside to take over. She would never forget the feel of a lifeless body, as he limply fell from her grasp.

"INO! We have to go!" Chouji cried trying to shake her out of her paralysis.

She shook her mane of blonde hair, tears flying with her movement. She would stay. Here. With him. They should have been there. Goddamn it, why had they been late? She would lay down and die with him. Like she goddamn should have. She should have been there. Like he had done for them. They were Ino Shika Chou. How could they operate without him?

Chouji grabbed her arm and she ripped him from her violently as she fixed him with red rimmed steel eyes.

"What are you doing? Idiot! If we don't leave now we're going to be overrun! He wouldn't have wanted this!" Chouji cried.

No, he wouldn't have. He would have been screaming along with Chouji, but it was hard to do that when you were dead. Ino trembled until those ice blue eyes hardened. Shika didn't always get what he wanted, did he? She certainly didn't. She would be just as troublesome, only now she didn't have the lazy Nara to tell her it was a bad idea.

"I won't leave him" She said, pulling out a kunai as she stood guard over his body.

Ice blue eyes widened as she felt it, and turned just a fraction too late. The blow to the back of her head was precise. She had just a fraction of a second to recognize her attacker and with her last millisecond, glared malevolently upon her assaulter. Steel blue eyes rolled back into her head. Ino hit the ground. TenTen had done Chouji the honors and spared him the effort.

Brown eyes swept over the scene methodically and she came to her own assumptions on the scene. There was nothing more to be done. With a clinical evaluation, she nodded.

"Move out" She ordered with a look towards the dead Nara before moving forward.

"TenTen san, was that really necessary?" Lee asked. He ignored him. Lee sighed and shouldered the body of Shikamaru.

As Neji touched down he saw the tangle of golden hair. Yamanaka Ino. With a shake of his head, he picked up the muddy kunoichi, and they moved forward out of enemy territory.

…...

Ino's eyes were bloodshot, puffy from her tears. It rained that day. Too many clouds in the sky. He would have hated his funeral. For a man that spent the most of his time cloud gazing, it felt like the sky too was mourning his loss too. She was not the only one who had lost that day. The rain poured down, drenching everything, except for their pain. Tears could not drown in this.

In missions, death lurked around every corner. It was a provincial ghost, a happy haunt, as you moved through the mission. Death was as close as a friend, a lover in those times and it wasn't to be feared, or hated. It simply was a part of things, intertwined and understood. This felt like death, the slow way, the intrusive un-objective way. It was Unacceptable.

Neji stood pearlescent eyes puffy not from the Byakugan. Ino looked like a wet bedraggled kitten, as she gazed at him. It was as clear as day to someone like him. Her heart was broken, mangled into a thousand pieces. For he had been close to her, but Shikamaru was her best friend. They had grown up together, fought together, bled together. The bond of a friend was strong. The bond of a teammate, unbreakable, all save for death. It was the only tie that could sever. Tenten was dead. And no wishful thinking or desperation could bring her back. Pearlescent eyes gazed into lake blue. She knew, what it felt like to have her insides ripped out, to have her team broken. She knew what this pain was like, Neji who had lost so many, found that in his hour of darkness he had gained something, someone. Bonds were broken, severed by death. But had any been forged like this? Neji's gaze went over to Kakashi, to team seven, who knew death could take whoever it wanted. Sasuke's death had been this difficult. But it had brought team seven together in a way they had never thought possible.

Now with two other deaths of the original rookie nine, Neji extended his hand towards her. Inos eyes widened, shocked at the gesture. Neji was not known for his compassionate nature. This was extensive, huge, for someone like him. Ino, a master of the inner workings of the mind, of reading others found no malevolence, no pre calucated or pre meditated cruelty in this act. Hyuuga Neji was merely offering himself.

Her fingers reached for his, tentatively, and found them. They only touched with the curl of their ring fingers, her pinky resting on top of his. She wasn't wearing nail polish and her hands bore the callouses of hard work. It wasn't much. But it was a start, and it was enough.


End file.
